


A World Full of People

by InkSkratches



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Big brother Cronus, Bronus, Gen, Heartbreak and misery, Humanstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-26
Updated: 2012-09-26
Packaged: 2017-11-15 02:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkSkratches/pseuds/InkSkratches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Big brother Cronus tells Eridan the truth about Santa Claus, and everything just kind of spirals downward from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A World Full of People

Your name is Eridan Ampora and today just so happens to be the day that you discover the tremendous fallacy that is Santa Claus.

It’s more than a bit upsetting, because you are currently wearing one of the Great Lie’s articles of propagation on your head. The little white poof ball hits against your cheek as you shake your head in helpless negation, and each little pap feels like a hammer strike of injustice.

But your brother is there. And he puts both hands on your shoulders and looks at you with a face so calm it’s like he can’t hear reality shattering.

“It’s okay,” he continues. You can’t shake how old he sounds. Wise. And big. His hands are like two blankets on your shoulders. A comfort.

“We all believe in stupid stuff like that when we’re kids. But that’s why I’m helping you grow up. That way you won’t have to face the disappointment like I did. I’m letting you down easy.”

You nod, even though the speed at which all the dreams unravel makes it impossible to hold back the tears.

“Rudolph too?” Some small part of you hopes that at least the misfit reindeer managed to escape the cold hammer of reality.

“Sorry, but I’m afraid Rudolph is just as fake as his jolly driver.” He gives you a small smile and brushes away a tear with his thumb. “I know how awful it all must seem to you, but believe me, it’s much worse to go on lying to yourself. You don’t want to be seen as that guy who believed in fake stuff until he was grown up, do you? You don’t want people to laugh.”

You shake your head. You think of all the other kids now, the ones in your first grade class. You think about how you’ll all be singing the song about the reindeer on the rooftop. You worry if they’ve all been laughing this whole time, behind your back.

“Does Fef know?” you ask. She is your best friend, so it seems imperative that you find out about her state of enlightenment first.

Your brother’s eyes light up and he gives your shoulders a squeeze. It hurts a little.

“That’s the best part. I’ve made sure you’re the first to know. No brother of mine will be made a laughingstock. You have a leg up on them now. You know things they don’t even think about. And you can now appreciate how silly they all look in their little Santa hats, waiting by a tree for what happens to be the biggest lie ever coughed up.”

The fabric on your head feels suddenly heavy. You tug it off. He gives you an encouraging grin.

“That’s it. You don’t need all that fake baloney, do you chief?”

He takes the hat in his hands before the muscles in his forearms bulge and you hear a soft tearing. Soon he’s got the thing ripped open at the seam, spread in his hands like some flayed thing. He laughs and tosses it aside.

“Cheap is what that is.” His hands return to your shoulders. “But you’re not cheap, are you?”

You know that to look at the sad scrap of fabric now would be weakness. But you can’t help but want to. Because in all the stories, it was when things looked the bleakest and the hero shed his tears that the sparkling light of miracles would well up and make things right and good again.

But he’s looking at you with those eyes and that crooked smile, and that seems right to you. Wise. So you press your trembling lips together and you do not cry and you do not look over your shoulder.

He’s never looked so proud in his life.

…

Your name is Eridan Ampora and today you will learn about Girls.

Your brother looks surlier than usual when you walk through the door after your daily woodland romp with Fef (where you spent more time looking for wounded animals than you did nursing any). So the fact that the usual benign interrogations do not follow should not come as the shock that it does.

He leans forward in the tattered easy chair in front of the TV, cigarette dangling from his lower lip.

“Tell me there, chief. Have you made a move on that Peixes girl yet?”

You pause in kicking off your shoes to observe him. His eyes are darker than usual, and it makes your stomach clench up in a weird way. You’re not exactly sure what he means by “moves” but you never like the crooked smile he gives you when you get something wrong. So you look at your feet and you hope he decides to explain soon.

You hear the chair squeak and the shuffling of socks against the carpet before he’s kneeling in front of you with both hands on your shoulders in that way that alerts you to the fact that you will now be engaging in a “talk.”

“God, you’ve had that little kitten wrapped around your pinky since you were in swaddling clothes. You can’t tell me you’ve been playing with her every day since then and still haven’t experienced any… _urges_.”

He’s gazing at you expectantly, lips parted, as if he wants to mouth the answer for you. But you’re not sure what the answer is, so you just give him a helpless look. He wrinkles his nose.

“Come on there, chief. How old are you now?”

Finally, something easy. “Eight.”

“Right, eight. And Amporas develop early. So it’s only natural for you to be confused about all this right now, but I know you feel something when you play with that girl, don’t you? Something deep in here.”

He pats your stomach and it sort of knocks the breath out of you, so you don’t get to answer. But part of you is glad, because the only thing you’ve ever felt in your stomach when you’re with Feferi is the occasional pang of hunger when she keeps you out too late, but you’re sure that’s not what your brother is talking about.

He’s already on his feet and leading you down the hall, his hand covering yours easily.

“Now, I don’t want you to worry. I’ll make it so everything is plain as daylight to you, and you can start getting with that girl in the way that you really want.”

Now your curiosity is piqued. “Way I really want?”

“Yeah. No self-respecting and attractive guy like you would ever settle for just letting some little kitten dangle all platonically off your arm. That’s not a weight a guy of your breeding was made for. You were born to be a lover, chief, and I’m going to make it so that doing that comes as naturally to you as that and a lot of other awesome things come naturally to me.”

Your head is spinning a little, but you’re not one to argue with your brother’s worldly coolness. So you let him heave you up onto the bathroom counter and peer at your face.

“It’s a real shame about the specs, but we can make them work. It’s just a matter of finding the right style to suit your rapidly defining jaw line.” He tips your head to get a better like at the jaw line he’s just mentioned, frowning.

“Your hair is a real mess too. I am truly grateful that you have reached this important moment in your life, because now I never have to excuse you for going around looking like a little homeless wayfarer ever again.”

His face is bright, and it’s with a warm palm that he pushes your bangs away from your forehead. But you feel cold at the tips of your toes and fingers. Because you know he’s yelling at you without actually doing it.

It’s his way of warning you. Laying the groundwork for what will make him proud and what will not. Because he’s yelled at you before. When you were younger, you’d sit on your bed amidst your plush admirers and wow them with your magical prowess. But no amount of pleading or desperate incantations could stop your brother after he found you. He snapped your wand over his knee and disemboweled your stuffed audience without giving you so much as a glance.

That is how you know to listen the first time. To realize where the boundaries are so that you never step over them.

So you observe carefully as he washes your hair and puts a strange-smelling glop in it. You look at the mirror and watch your eyes squint a little when he slicks your bangs out of your face. Then he tells you to put a strange, tingly liquid on your face, going over all the ways in which smell is key to attraction.

Once done in the bathroom, he leads you to the bedroom. Soon the place is littered with your clothes, and he’s shaking his head in disgust and asking the ceiling how he could have possibly let you go on in this aesthetic vein for so long.

He then rips up your favorite shirt, the one with the fish on it, and you really don’t understand what you did to warrant this because you have been doing everything to the letter up until this point.

So your lip starts to wobble.

“Don’t give me that,” he says, and the excitement in his face is overcast by disgust. “This is cheap. All of it is. You’re worth way more than this, all right? And as my brother, you deserve at least a fighting chance with the ladies.”

“But I don’t wanna fight with Fef!” you protest, still incoherent from the loss of your shirt.

“Of course you don’t, don’t be an idiot,” he snaps. “You’ve got to be smooth. Develop a style. All this takes years to do properly, but I am doing you the favor of teaching you now and giving you and edge on the competition. It takes real finesse to get to the point where I am.”

“I don’t want to get to your point,” you howl, inconsolable. “I just wanna play with Fef!”

“Hey!” he shouts, and he’s got you by the ear now, and you freeze and swallow your tears as his mouth lurches toward the side of your face and you feel hot breath washing over your cheek.

“Playing is for toddlers. Little squalling babies who don’t know anything other than how to eat and shit themselves. I’m teaching you how to be a man like me. Don’t you want to be a man like me? Don’t you?”

You flinch and swallow back even more tears. You nod.

“Then you don’t ‘play with’ girls. You melt them with just the right amount of passion. It’s like being a chocolatier, only the work is much more delicate when you’re trying to temper a good woman. But that just makes the success taste even sweeter.”

You sniffle and don’t respond. You do like chocolate, but your brother is dangerous now, and you’re not sure whether telling him so is what he wants. So you just think it really hard and hope he lets you off.

He does. He sets you on your beanbag and pats your head. It feels weird, like your hair has hardened into some kind of helmet.

“Sorry I had to be kind of tough on you just now, but I’m only trying to look out for you. You don’t want to grow up to be a disappointment, do you?”

You shake your head. No. No you do not.

…

Your name is Eridan Ampora and you are pretty sure that your best girl now hates your guts.

You make sure to slam the door with enough force to make your house shudder to its very foundation. It’s a good way to expel some of the boiling rage swelling in your chest, but also serves an important second purpose.

You need to tell someone about this vile injustice, and you need to do it now.

That someone is the only someone in the house. He pokes his head from his studio, headphones looped around his neck.

“All right there, chief?” he asks.

“No,” you spit. “Girls are fuckin’ stupid is what.”

He takes the headphones off, always keen to the scent of your distress. You’re grateful for it, but you know better than to lean into him too much when his hand drops predictably onto your shoulder. He hates it when you cling.

“Still having trouble with the Peixes girl?” he asks.

“She was just bein’ so ignorant to my signals,” you burst out, ripping off the scarf that you had carefully coordinated with your shoes that morning. “I know you keep tellin’ me that patience is half the battle, but she’s just fuckin’ irreconcilable.”

“All right, buddy, I understand that you’re having some serious emotions right now. But I’m here to listen. That’s what I do. Now just sit yourself in that chair there and lay it on me from the very beginning.”

You sink down into the seat and the wood squeaks beneath you. Across the table, he’s also sitting, looking at you from over steepled fingers. His eyes are shining. You know he enjoys this.

Enjoys helping you. With your problems.

So you make sure to inject as much vehemence into your words as you can.

“I’ve just been doin’ so much shit for her. Offerin’ to buy her lunch or lendin’ her my umbrella when it rains. But she never gets any of it and never really appreciates what I go through.”

He closes his eyes and nods a martyr’s nod. “So few of them do. But you know you have her won. It’s simply a matter of implementing more creative tactics. Have you considered the power of music? I was working on a track just now, before you got home, and I really think—”

“She’s seein’ someone else!”

His eyes widen in genuine shock. “No…”

“I didn’t do the whole temperin’ thing and I couldn’t stand sittin’ on my hands and waitin’ for her to finally wake up and see what a good fuckin’ prospect I’ve been all this time. So I just went out and said it and it was probably the most humiliatin’ experience of my life.”

He tuts and reaches across the table to pat your hand. “That’s really rough there, champ.”

It is rough. It is a lot more than rough and you are quite sure your brother does not understand, for all his efforts to provide consolation.

“Well, it hardly ends there,” you go on. “I fuckin’ lost it. I told her what a horrid condescendin’ witch she is, and how inconsiderate a my feelings she was bein’, and then after that whole tirade, she just tells me she’s seein’ some other guy. Like that’s just fuckin’ it and now we’re over. Probably for good this time.”

He shakes his head. “Well, I hate to say I told you so, but I did tell you so. On multiple occasions. You don’t cultivate this killer persona simply to drop it in a moment of weakness. It’s an amateur’s mistake, honestly, and I’m not surprised to see a novice like you commit it. But that’s all right, and you’re not a complete failure yet, because the great thing about all this is how many little fish are still swimming in the sea and waiting to be caught by your over-eager angler’s hands.”

You pause. Even your body seems to stop for a minute, the blood and breath locking in place.

Then your eyebrows draw together over your glasses, and you get angry.

“Are you tellin’ me to just give up, is that what I’m hearin’ right now?”

He leans back in his chair and lifts his hands in a shrug. You know from experience that for all its laid-back implications, it is a defensive move. And normally that would alert you not to press the matter, because your brother doesn’t like being pressed.

But you are livid and you don’t care.

“Aren’t you the one that’s always tellin’ me to get back up on the proverbial horse and be patient and all this other infuriating fuckin’ BS? There’s always some fuckin’ stupid way to fix it, and that’s what I’m really needin’ you to tell me right now.”

You bite off the rest of your tirade. The part where your lip wobbles and you cling to your brother and you cry and curse and beg and tell him that she’s all you have— _have_ , present tense, because you can’t stand the thought of a life that she’s not a part of. You can’t fathom how things will be without her there to chide and annoy you, but mostly make you happy. You bite that off because you know how pathetic it is, but sometimes you really are just pathetic.

And even though you don’t say any of it, he sees it on your face.

The smile disappears from his lips and he leans toward you over the table. You want to shrink back, but you don’t, because that will only make it worse.

“Look, buddy, I’m trying to be sympathetic to your situation, but I think we can both agree that right now you are being the worst kind of disgrace either of us can really imagine.”

You glare at him through your glasses, but you know your voice will break terribly if you try to retort now. So you don’t.

He leans closer and puts a hand on your shoulder. He squeezes until it hurts.

“Remember when I told you about magic?”

You just keep looking at him and try not to wince.

“That was for just this sort of case. You don’t get a fairytale ending. You don’t ever. Nobody does. Leastways me, who has to dedicate his life to providing tutelage to someone as pathetic as you. Wake up. You just threw the best years out the fucking window and that isn’t anybody’s fault but your own. And now you have to live with it and move on and try your luck elsewhere because that’s life—real life—and not somebody’s made-up fucking story.”

He lets you go then, and he walks around the table before crumpling to his knees beside you and hugging you so fiercely you think you might never breathe again. But you do, and so does he, raggedly and into your ear, and it hurts, but you’re pretty sure it hurts him too. And that’s when it dawns on you that you don’t have to tell him about how lonely and awful you feel, because he already knows, and he already feels it too, and he’s probably been feeling it for a lot longer than you have.

So you don’t say anything. You’re not sure what you would have said anyway.

…

Your name is Eridan Ampora and you sort of wish you still believed in the tremendous fallacy that is Santa Claus.

You walk through the door smelling like grease, and your feet hurt, but you keep walking on them, even after you kick off your shoes and throw your little visor in the sink. You just keep going, all the way into your brother’s studio, which is really just a couple computers set up in your parents’ old room. And he’s there, like he always is, cursing and raging this time because he’s knocked over the last of the Jack onto his turntables. You don’t know whether all the fury is directed at the loss of the music or the alcohol, but you doubt he knows either. You just grab him away from it, because he’s got this haze in his eyes that he gets right before he becomes violently sick over everything, and you really want to avoid adding ‘putrid vomit’ to the laundry list of other unpleasant odors currently clinging to your body.

He grabs you, and his fingers dig into your shoulder, helpless desperation replacing all the strength and wisdom you used to feel exuding from his skin. And he gives a piteous moan and you know there’s not much time now, so you rush him to the bathroom and shove his head over the toilet and let him empty himself. You let him whimper and sob and talk about _his_ Feferi. “I never even told you about the one that got away from me,” he sobs and gasps into the echoing bowl of porcelain, like he always does. “She was the tops, chief. The tops. And I let her get away.”

You hate him. Sometimes you tell him that, while he’s clutching the toilet and puking and crying. You tell him how pathetic he looks. You tell him how hopeless he is. How he’ll never find anyone and that he will die alone. Most of the time he curses at you like some wounded animal, and it makes you feel a little better.

But in some awful instances, he agrees with you.

He’ll go on and on, like he’s dying. In between bouts of scrabbling at the tile and heaving into the toilet, he’ll gasp and splutter. You tell him to save his breath for the puking, but he doesn’t. He uses it instead to tell you about what an awful fuckup he is, how he’s so sorry his music never took off, how he shouldn’t have spent all that money because now the inheritance is gone, and how you never should have listened to a word he said.

And those are the times you hate him most. Because you wish he would have told you all this sooner.

You wonder what it would be like to still believe in magic. If it would give you the ability to rewind time, to take back all the hours and days and months he stole. You wonder if there could have been a happy ending if you had decided to believe in Santa Claus.

But you didn’t.

You decided to believe in your brother instead.

So now you know there are no miracles. There is only loneliness. And as much as you hate him, he is the only person who knows that even better than you do.

There is a whole world full of people, but he is the only one you have.

So you never leave. You can’t.

And maybe that’s what he wants. Maybe that’s what he wanted all along.

And you hate it.

But now

it’s what you want too.


End file.
